


No Kind of Life

by muses_circle



Series: We All Fall series [17]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Gen, More angst, Natural Disasters, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Uber Angst, mentions of lucifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24145594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muses_circle/pseuds/muses_circle
Summary: The woods are lovely dark and deep / But I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep
Relationships: Sam Winchester/Emma Boudreaux, Sam Winchester/Original Female Character
Series: We All Fall series [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1059086
Kudos: 1





	No Kind of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Anything belonging to Supernatural doesn't belong to me. Only the girl is mine. I guess this would contain spoilers for the season 5 finale of Supernatural, and there is lots of angst. Just so you know. The poem comes from Robert Frost’s "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Night".

When Lucifer came out of his cage and all hell broke loose, she knew it was the end of the world.  
  
When Sam confessed he was destined to become Lucifer’s vessel, she wanted to shield him from that horror.  
  
When the Winchesters told her of their plan to stop Lucifer, she wondered if it was even possible.  
  
When Bobby explained the four Horsemen’s rings were the key to throwing the fallen angel back into his cage, part of her knew to prepare herself for the worst.  
  
When Sam said part of their plan involved letting Lucifer in, words failed her. How could she voice the sheer terror at the thought of knowing he was in the world but controlled by the Enemy? How could she let him go, perhaps forever?  
  
How could she hold him back, though?  
  
She had stared at him for seemed an eternity, unable to utter a syllable to express the numbing feeling that settled in her stomach.  
  
“Emma?” Sam had said, “You know this means that I . . . I won’t be coming back.”  
  
All she could do is nod. He wasn’t coming back, and she’d have to live with the knowledge that his punishment for fixing the world was Hell. Somehow, it didn’t seem fair. A faint giggle had escaped her, which surprised both of them.  
  
His brows furrowed, but he has pulled her into his arms and held her. Emma clung to him, unable to do anything except press her face into his chest and breathe him in for the last time.  
  
After several moments, she had looked up at him and whispered, “What happens after you . . .?” Her voice broke, and she bit her lip to keep the tears at bay.  
  
Sam had smiled softly and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Live and be happy, Em. Settle down with someone who can offer you a regular life. Get the hell away from hunting. It’ll kill you, and I can’t bear the thought of you suffering.”  
  
Her tears had fallen in earnest by the time he’d finished speaking. _How am I supposed to do any of that when you’ll be dead, Sam?_  
  


Two weeks later, Emma began asking herself another question: _Has it happened yet? Did any of them survive?_  
  
Reports of natural disasters and strange occurrences had quadrupled since she last saw Sam, Dean, and Bobby. Random cold spots, entire states’ wealth of crops and animals stricken overnight by incurable disease, earthquakes and devastating tornadoes. If the world was really coming to an end, all indications pointed to sooner than later.  
  
Still, she kept her wits about her and tried as best she could to assist any hunter who contacted her. Admittedly, that was few and far between, since so many of them had died in an assortment of horrible ways. Demons were getting creative, she often thought, creative and more aggressive, as though they were certain that they would overtake the earth. Since no heavenly bodies had intervened, Emma assumed that heaven wanted this as badly as hell did.  
  
And then suddenly, the chaos simply stopped. A massive hurricane in the Gulf dissipated, the tsunami heading towards New York City slowed and disappeared into the Atlantic.  
  
Emma got her answer: Sam had done it. He was probably dead, along with Dean and Bobby for all she knew.  
  
 _Do I now try to contact him, or wait?_  
  
The numbness in her stomach turned over and reached for her soul.  
  


Emma was on the road, headed towards Colorado Springs on assignment with the museum, when she got the call from Bobby. After watching three agonizing days of normalcy in the news, she had begun to question whether any of them survived. Even Castiel, the angel-turned-human, hadn’t bothered contacting her, despite her request that he call her should the others die.  
  
When Bobby’s photo and picture popped on the screen, Emma swallowed hard and pulled off the interstate. She fumbled with the phone and hit a button to begin the call. No sense in having an accident, she thought. “Bobby?”  
  
“Emma.” Bobby’s gruff voice sounded deep with emotion, as if he had just gone through hell and lost his best friend.  
  
 _Ironic, since that’s probably what he’s going to tell me._ “Thank God, Bobby. I was worried about y’all,” she said quickly, a false sense of excitement in her voice. “Did Sam and Dean – ”  
  
“Emma, Sam’s gone. He . . . fell.”  
  
Her soul went numb. “And Lucifer?” she asked, wincing at the trembling she heard in her voice.  
  
“In the pit,” Bobby grunted.  
  
 _So it was over. Lucifer was gone. So was Sam._ For several minutes, Emma sat there, her phone attached to her ear, and mulled over that thought. Sam was dead and gone, perishing in Hell even though he deserved to be in Heaven. _He deserved to be in Heaven, but he’s in Hell. Sam told me to stop hunting and let him go. But he’s in Hell. He should be in Heaven._  
  
“Emma?” Bobby’s concerned voice sounded from the phone.  
  
“It’s not fair, Bobby,” Emma whispered, wishing she had tears to cry. Her eyes, however, refused to do anything but stare blindly ahead at the majestic Rocky Mountains looming over the horizon, a place Sam would never see again, a place she’d never get to see with him.  
  
The hunter sighed in agreement. “No it ain’t,” he replied.  
  
“What about Dean?” she asked. “Is he – ?”  
  
“No, he’s alive. Alive and doing what Sam asked him to.”  
  
Emma couldn’t help but smile. Knowing him, Sam told Dean to do the same thing he asked of her. Perhaps Dean would have better luck finding it, though she wasn’t so sure. Either way, she knew she’d never hear from Dean again, which brought out the sadness hiding beneath the numbness. “Okay,” she whispered, “I gotta go.”  
  
“Look, if you need anything,” Bobby began.  
  
“Thanks, Bobby,” she said. “I’ll call when I get back from Colorado Springs.” She ended the call and let the phone fall to the passenger seat. She continued to stare ahead, sightless but for what she wanted to see, the barren wasteland of her life. She wanted nothing more than to do ask Sam asked, but some of it was impossible. How did one let go of true love?  
  
One thing was certain: Emma could take some small comfort in her job, and step back from anything related to hunting for the foreseeable future, maybe longer. She had things to do, places to visit, collections to catalogue.  
  
From the back of her mind, a voice whispered lines from a favorite poem:  
  


> _The woods are lovely dark and deep  
>  But I have promises to keep  
> And miles to go before I sleep  
> And miles to go before I sleep_

  
Would that Sam had the same future, she thought and shut her eyes. _For him, though, I will try to keep my promise, even though I don’t want any kind of life that doesn’t involve Sam._


End file.
